(WASHINGTON) — As Democratic lawmakers continue to question why Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has been involved in the Justice Department’s criminal probe into the 2020 election, Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday defended Gabbard’s role, saying, “we are inseparable.”
Bondi was asked to explain the shifting and sometimes conflicting accounts given by the DOJ, President Donald Trump and Gabbard herself about who ordered her to be at the Fulton County, Georgia, Elections Hub and Operations Center on Jan. 28 when the FBI raided the office and took ballots and other documents related to the 2020 election.
On Monday, Gabbard had told Congress in a letter that President Donald Trump ordered her to be at the election office and that it was part of her job to ensure U.S. election security against foreign interference.
On Wednesday, Trump said, “I don’t know,” when asked in an NBC News interview why Gabbard was in Georgia.
However, Trump told attendees at a National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday that Gabbard went to Georgia at “Pam’s insistence,” referring to Bondi who was present at the event and added that “Pam wanted her to do it.”
On Friday, Bondi responded to questions about the inconsistent accounts, saying she and Gabbard are “inseparable.”
“We are constantly together,” she said. “We constantly talk, we collaborate as a Cabinet. We’re all extremely close [and] know…what we are doing at all times pretty much.”
Bondi declined to give details of the investigation, but contended Gabbard’s presence at the FBI raid and involvement in the probe would not hinder the investigation.
“Georgia is a very important issue to us,” she said.
“Andrew Bailey was taking the lead down there. He’s Director Patel’s Deputy Director of the FBI,” Bondi later added.
Bondi avoided answering a direct question about whether it was she, as President Trump claimed, who sent Gabbard to Georgia.
“Did you send her down?” a reporter asked.
“She was there. We’re inseparable. That’s all I’ll say,” Bondi replied.
Inseparable though they might be, Bondi was not in Georgia with Gabbard.
An ODNI official told ABC News last week that Gabbard’s presence was requested by the president “and executed under her broad statutory authority to coordinate, integrate, and analyze intelligence related to election security, including counterintelligence, foreign malign influence, and cyber security.”
Trump has repeatedly made baseless claims that there was voter fraud in the 2020 election, specifically in Georgia, that contributed to his election loss to Biden. He also has repeated claims, without evidence, that China and other foreign adversaries were involved in the alleged fraud.
Georgia officials audited and certified the results following the election, and numerous lawsuits challenging the election results in the state were rejected by the courts.
Fulton County officials say FBI agents removed 700 boxes containing ballots and other materials associated with the 2020 election after obtaining a search warrant approved by a federal magistrate judge.
Investigators are going ballot by ballot, searching for any irregularities, sources said. Fulton County officials have demanded that those materials be returned.
The investigation has set off a firestorm among Georgia election officials and some Democrats on the Hill who have questioned Gabbard’s authority and Trump’s allegations.
Democrat Sen. Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has demanded Gabbard and the administration be more transparent.
In an interview with CNN Thursday, Warner called the shifting explanations about who directed Gabbard to be at the FBI search “almost like Nixon-esque” because “after the Watergate, people [couldn’t] get their stories straight.”
“It begs even the original question, is why in the hell is the president of the United States aware of a search warrant being ordered in Georgia?” Warner said. “So, if he told her to be there, he knew about this beforehand, which, by the way, is exactly the kind of activities that got Richard Nixon in trouble.”
Warner raised concerns that Trump is sowing seeds to interfere in the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election.
“Here’s a guy that was obsessed about losing in 2020, obsessed about losing in Georgia. And I, I believe they may be intending to interfere in our elections in ’26 and ’28,” he said.
“And I think we all have to step up our game, you know, take all of this, and then you add in the president saying he wants to federalize elections and have Republicans take control. This isn’t the way the system works,” Warner added.
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